The invention relates generally to power-driven conveyors and, more particularly, to a conveyor that employs a vacuum to facilitate conveyance.
Conveyor belts may sometimes include article-supporting rollers to propel conveyed objects in a desired direction as the conveyor belt advances. Conveyor belts with article-supporting rollers may be used for accelerating, diverting, sorting, merging, switching or otherwise moving objects in a selected direction relative to a moving conveyor belt. The rollers are arranged to rotate in line with or perpendicular or oblique to the direction of belt travel. Examples of conveyors using belts of this kind are described in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,494,312; 6,968,941; 7,461,739; and 7,971,701.
Conveyed objects may be unsteady on conveyor belts, particularly due to the use of embedded rollers, which may cause the objects to shift or fall.